Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels

This book is like a season of the Podcast Serial mixed with a Sherlock Holmes novel. I’ve never read anything like it and I was engrossed from the first page. Instead of telling a story in a normal, linear way, you are presented with all of the evidence (emails, articles, text messages…) and it is left to you to figure out what to do with it. Highly recommend for anyone who is a fellow true crime junkie!

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lautodd_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Wild. Fire. Disturbing, but couldn’t put it down.

A story about a famous true crime novelist— persistent and doggedly and dangerously determined— writing an exposé novel about The Alperton Angels case: an 18-year old satanic cult case involving several murders-by-suicide-pact and a surviving teenage couple and their 2-month-old baby.

I’m not usually a true crime or mystery/thriller fan, but the story towed the tense line of eerie and practical very well.

In hindsight, it wasn’t a book that moved me so deeply as it was engaging and pleasing. Writing the novel with mixed media— WhatsApp messages, transcribed audio recordings, emails, hand-written letters, excerpts from the book-in-progress—was such a clever, befitting choice for this story and is probably would provoked me to read through the night. There’s something enticing, felt-morally wrong, and revelatory about reading messages and writings and recordings— the ins and outs— of a circumstance or a life. Perhaps satisfying our desires to be caught up in other lives and stories, not necessarily because we are disappointed with our own, but because there are other billions of stories and worlds out there outside of our own, and bearing witness to that— whether a lovely or gruesome one— is beyond fathomable; particularly proving that there’s so much of the finite that is infinite and outside of our control or imagination.

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alnicholl77's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I've loved everything else Janice Hallett has written but I just didn't enjoy the themes in this book. I knew everything would be cleverly tied up at the end, but it didn't make up for the time spent struggling through the rest of the book.

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bmpicc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I had fun solving this one too! I give Hallett a lot of credit for the style/set-up of her books. I can't even begin to imagine HOW she keeps it all straight and flowing and interesting... There are a lot of characters again, but I honestly did not struggle to keep track this time. Angels deals with a cult conspiracy and religion, so it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

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